Happy Easter, everyone! Fifty days of Easter, we have to be showing it. I know school started today, I want to know how real your Easter is. First of all, of course, I would ask those who are being in the choir and also those who are having the prayers at Mass, to pray for the church in its present trials, especially here in the United States. It’s obvious that the injustice that has really taken place has been the occasion for the enemies of the church to attack the church. And so I ask you to pray together that we pray for the church and its strength, strengthen through this trial.
What’s your definition of a Christian? I’ll give you a strange definition. A Christian is one who is not sad, and not old. And of course you can say "you’re crazy." Look at all these old people, you’re seventy yourself. But if we really listen and open to what we celebrate, we have to see that our sins are not the occasion for God to quit loving us. That we don’t loose His love for us if we sin. That doesn’t mean of course that we should go around sinning but that’s not the point. Do we really let that in? And then secondly, do we really see, so how can you be sad if you know that the worst thing that can happen to you is dissolvable. The second thing that sinfulness in us has a remedy and Jesus is offering it to us freely. So how can you be sad? Objectively, you cannot be sad. Subjectively you can be sad because you’re proud, you won’t come to Jesus, you won’t pray faithfully, you won’t turn to Him. You won’t really use the extra time God gives you to more prayer during Lent and so on. And so you’re not resurrected more this year than last year. So you’re sad. And yet objectively you have no reason to be sad. You have every reason to celebrate with the church fifty days of alleluia’s.
Secondly, you don’t get old. One of the joys about being in a parish, I have to admit, is burying people who are in their 80’s and 90’s who were absolutely young at heart. Yes, their body was old but they were the most loving person in the family. The Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s it’s absolutely amazing. And they were right in the parish. And this Saturday we had the memorial Mass for Charlie Feliciano’s Mother In Law, she’s from Puerto Rico, and when he describes his Mother In Law, she was like that. So we have evidence that we have been given the Holy Spirit. We have tangible evidence, we’ve seen it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, people have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit to take over our lives and become a loving, really self-giving presence that’s joyful and there for others. So how much of the world have we picked up and it’s spirit that dampens us, that kills us? All the people who bought into Enron here we are, we’re going to make a lot of money and be happy. And then when all the noise is over with and things settle they found that they lost their life’s savings. They were sad. The world is always proclaiming "I’ll make you happy! I’ll give you life!" then, of course, we pick it up. And we’re going to make our life happy and good on our own, of course. And so we follow our schedule, we do what we want but how much do we really put Jesus first? And we want to we’re happy to do this. And start working at those area’s where the Lord says, "Look, this is selfishness. This can only lead to sadness, to a road that has no end, no meaning. To a locked door, to death." Most of us in this community are not novices so, I know you know these things. But how come it doesn’t translate into living? One of the things I’m sensing has happened is the style in which we celebrate Christmas and Easter and I wonder whether we really are serious about really celebrating these feasts for the Lord. And in the Lord. So we need to discuss that sometime, because it’s us we’re together in this, we go together. Takes me time to get a feel for being abbot, sorry, but that’s the way it is.
Yes there is a place for sorrow in the Christian life. But you know, it’s not sorrow relative to me, it’s sorrow relative to what I see people not knowing about Jesus. So I’m sad because God is not loved. Because they don’t know salvation. It’s a evocative, apostolic sorrow. It’s for the other, but it’s genuine, non the less. It is sad that the church does not radiate the Spirit like we see in some elderly people. Cause that’s what we’re supposed to be. That’s what Jesus wants for us. We have been given the Spirit. The same Spirit that we’re celebrating today in the feast of the Annunciation that put Jesus in the womb of Mary. Well, if he can make Jesus in the womb of Mary he can transform us, I think. So we have to really ask ourselves, do we really believe? It’s possible to be a monk and begin not to believe. I remember reading some author who says, "woe to the monastery where the monks don’t believe." How do you do that? By not cooperating with grace. By rejecting it. And pretty soon you are just routinely doing things and you don’t really believe. You don’t encounter Jesus and the gifts He wants to give us. Not theory. There here, there right here! We have been given the Spirit. We are God’s children, we’re the apple of His eye! Therefore, you can run to the Father, hop in His lap and be hugged. You can go to Jesus as your friend. You can ask Him for graces that you need. You can turn to the Spirit and never stop till he gives you what you need of light, of strength for your weakness, of guidance and consolation too.
Sometimes we forget when we are feeling desolate or empty that the Spirit gives us consolation. And he wants to give it to us. It’s important for us because otherwise we’re exposed and vulnerable to seek consolation in booze, or sleep, or food, or whatever we will seek it in. And it’s very important because we’re here not because of us, God called us here. He really did. He is the Lord of this monastery. He made this monastery exist. Yes, he used people, he used you and me and others before us but it’s His. And therefore He has a purpose, He wants to be able to say, " there, right there on Martin Luther King and Buckeye Road is this monastery that I just love these monks, they are a delight to me. I can ask them to do things for me and they will do it." As opposed to the world that says to God, "nuts to you!" So God is very happy when we pray, when we praise Him. He’s very happy to hear us pray for the world and look many of the petitions we pray for people get healed. So you can’t tell me God’s not hearing us. But we have to really ask ourselves do we really believe what we celebrate? And are we really making that the priority in our life? We were given the privilege to be drawn by Christ into the monastic life in order to live a life of close union with Jesus and through Jesus, in the Trinity of the church, and each other. "If I don’t love the people I see," John says, "how can you say you love God who you don’t see?" So it’s very important for us to really reflect on this question, do we believe or don’t we believe? If we believe, are we really open to what God wants to do? Here, in your life, in our life, in the church in Cleveland, for eternity. We are called here, not for ourselves only, but for the salvation of souls. Our prayer is used by God, our little sacrifice, I know sometimes it seems dumb, it’s always difficult for me to see how could I consider writing a letter to somebody or sweeping my room or something so simple that could be used by God for grace, but He does. We have the whole history of the church and many witnesses of the saints to show all it takes is really putting God first in your life and really seeking to do his will. Hour by hour, day by day, simple things that we do. But it makes God so happy to know that He has some place where He’s first. The first place in our hearts is Him. Not anything else. If that’s the case, now this is very important for us, cause to the degree that Jesus is first in our life, will we read in discernment what God wants us to do together as a community. That’s the source of discernment. Not our opinions, not our arguments, not our likes and dislikes, not our grumbling. Is this question. So I ask you to really reflect on Easter. Church says fifty days of alleluia, happy Easter everybody. It’s a time of joy. Not false joy, real joy. Joy is the result of greater union with God. We have to be more resurrected this year than last year, and that’s our joy.